


The Beginning of All Knowledge

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:10:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Gold - Rumpelstiltskin - has his true love back, but now, he's afraid of what he wants to ask of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of All Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Iambicdearie :D It didn't come exactly as I planned or hoped, but I hope you like it :)

She lay in the bed, still asleep, a swathe of morning sunlight illuminating her softly. 

Gold stood in the doorway, watching.

They had barely stopped touching one another since the curse broke, not until they reached his cabin, the very place he had brought her father. The very place that she would now be safe, as safe as she had been within the Dark Castle, so many years ago.

It had always been his intention to wait here, until his power returned.

It was never going to be immediate, not with so much power surging into the world at once, but it was coming, and even though they had sat and talked quietly and held one another’s hands into the small hours of the night, there was one thing he knew he had to do before it wrapped around him once more.

Gold - Rumpelstiltskin - was not a brave man. He never had been. 

The difference was that now, he was trying to be.

He didn’t need to hide behind the Dark One anymore, not for false courage. He didn’t need to caper and giggle and pretend that he was utterly inhuman. He was human. Even with all the power and all the magic he had garnered through one slip of a blade, he was human, and he loved as only a true human can.

The woman he loved lay before him.

For all he knew, he might be the Dark One incarnate within the next moments or hours, or, if he was lucky, days.

There was something he had longed to do from the moment she walked away from him. It was the same thing he had longed to do all of the previous day, from the instant he saw her face, until she gently released his hand and told him they needed to sleep. 

Through the hours of quiet conversation, the revelations, the truth of who he was and what he was doing, he had found himself fighting the urge to act like a craven animal, to devour her whole, to have just one more kiss from those familiar lips. 

Belle shifted on the white sheets of the bed. Her dark hair spilled around in glorious disarray, casting like shadows across the pillows. He walked a little closer, not wanting to wake her, but not able to resist the need to be near her again.

He hadn’t slept, barely a wink, waiting for the magic to take hold, to render him powerful, to make him as he was. He hadn’t dared to ask for her touch, not last night, but now, he hungered, with so many hours of thinking and longing and three decades of mourning and yearning.

He sat slowly on the edge of the bed. His right leg still ached, but it was manageable. 

The mattress dipped beneath him and one sleepy blue eye cracked open. Her arms were folded beneath her head, her face half hidden in them, but when she saw him, her expression brightened and she lifted her head.

“It wasn’t a dream?” she murmured drowsily, rubbing one eye with a small fist.

“Not in the least,” he murmured, his breath catching as she rolled onto her back and he realised she had acquired one of his shirts from somewhere. She was sleeping in his clothing, and it was too large, the buttons gaping, and he swallowed hard. 

It would have taken a much stronger man than he to resist her.

He reached out to brush her hair back from her cheeks, and she smiled up at him. 

Her smile remained as he leaned down over her, and his heart was pounding as he brushed his lips against hers. One of her arms and then the other wrapped around his neck and she drew herself up into his kiss.

It was far from perfect. 

In fact, she was the one to fall back, laughing, when her arms refused to hold her, and he smiled wryly. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to do that since yesterday,” she confessed, her hand brushing his cheek. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

He leaned down to kiss her again. “You’re wrong, dearie,” he murmured, echoing the words of so long ago. One of his hands was braced on the pillow beside her head, the other brushing against her side. “I want to do so much more. Things that would make you blush. Things that would make you look away from me.” He felt warm even saying such things, his voice thickening with the very thought of it. “Such wicked, wayward things.”

She looked up at him with those bright blue eyes. “Tell me?” she asked, colour rising in her cheeks, her voice only a little breathless.

His heart felt like it had stopped in his chest. “Belle…”

“You owe me a story,” she whispered. “I want this one. Tell me.” Her mouth curved into that knowing smile that had a wickedness all of its own. “Please?”

Gold had to swallow hard, again, but while he had started the little game, she did not refuse it, so who was he to back down. He would show her he was no coward. “I would kiss every inch of you,” he whispered, his face close to hers. “I would take a memory of every little bit of you with my hands, my lips, my eyes.” Her breath trembled out in a quick gust against his lips and he claimed another quick, deft kiss. “I would let you see just how much I love you.”

Her lips were parted, her eyes darker, and she breathed, “How?”

His words tapered off, the memories of a thousand dreams and nightmares crowding on him, driven by grief and loneliness, and the knowledge he could and would never be able to take her in his arms. 

Her hand to his face brought him back to her.

“I’m here,” she whispered, leaning up. “I’m here and we’re together.” She kissed him, and he looked at her, here and whole and in his arms, in his shirt, in his bed.

He pressed her back against the pillows with his kiss, drawing a startled gasp from her at his urgency. The magic could return at any moment, and he may not be able to touch her, to love her, in every way she deserved, not until the curse was shattered completely.

“Let me show you?” he breathed against her lips. “May I?”

She smiled and kissed him again, and he drew her up into his arms, his hands spreading on the shirt. She was so thin, thinner than he remembered, but he ran his hands from shoulder blades to tailbone, then curved them over her hips, committing every line and hollow of her body to memory.

Her arms were around his neck, her fingers spreading over his back, curling into his hair, constantly moving, drifting, as if she couldn’t get enough of touching him. He knew the feeling. It was guiding him.

His hands framed her hips, his thumbs shaping the curves where hip met thigh, only the fine barrier of his shirt preserving her modesty. He drew his lips from hers, kissing the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her jaw, the soft flesh beneath, her throat. He circled her throat with kisses, as if every kiss was a diamond in a perfect necklace, adorning her skin.

She would have diamonds. She would have the stars if she wanted them. He would pluck them down from the sky and make her a diadem.

A soft, quivering sound escaped her lips as he parted his lips and gently pressed his teeth against her throat. Some part of him wished to mark her all over, make it clear that she was his, all his, and no one else’s, but he could not damage her, not one whit, not a single part of her perfect, lovely skin.

He bit, but it was gently, and she trembled from head to toe. Each bite was soothed with the softest of kisses down the fine column of her throat, and his hands drifted back up her sides, along her arms, then back as he reached the point there the very top button of his shirt closed over her chest.

“Belle,” he whispered, uncertain, lifting his head to look at her. 

To kiss was one thing. To touch another. To bare…

There was no returning from that.

She drew one hand down over his shoulder, and her eyes never left his as she reached for the buttons of the shirt. One by one, she twisted them undone, though the shirt remained closed and modest, and she blushed. 

“You would…?”

She giggled then, still the same Belle. “You had me in your wicked clutches for months,” she said, tugging at the buttons of the shirt he was wearing. “Do you really think anyone would expect you to have left me untouched?”

He knew he was blushing too, which was ridiculous at his age. “I would never have,” he said heatedly. “Not without your leave.”

Her eyes were dancing, in spite of her blush, and his top button came undone. “I know,” she said, and he was powerless to keep himself from kissing her again. She nuzzled the tip of his nose. “Anyway, if they’re going to think me defiled, we better make sure we do it properly.”

Gold stared at her.

In that moment, she slipped her hand between the opened buttons of his own shirt and pressed her hand to his chest, small and warm and soft and enough to make him jump as if an electric current had run through him.

“Are you afraid?” she whispered. “Your heart is racing.”

“Terrified,” he confessed.

She smiled, small and quiet, and took his hand, and slipped it beneath the shirt she wore. His breath caught as his fingers skimmed the bare skin beneath. His fingers arpeggioed up her ribs, playing over them, though he hesitated, breathed deeply, as he drew his hand in towards her heart, brushing softer flesh still. 

His eyes darted to Belle’s face. She was flushed, but she nodded, and his trembling fingertips touched her as he had imagined a hundred, a thousand times before. It only took a nudge of his wrist to push the shirt aside, and he saw her bite her lower lip for a split-second before his eyes went in the same direction as his hand.

Her breast was as neat as perfect as he had always imagined, and he ran his thumb gently over the dainty nipple. She giggled faintly, breathlessly, her back arching just enough to make it clear his touch was welcome.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he murmured.

Her hand moved lightly on his chest, mimicking his touch. 

He raised his eyes back to hers, holding them, then lightly, so gently, tweaked her nipple. Her teeth caught her lower lip, stifling a small sound, but its twin escaped his throat when she copied him, only more surely.

Belle’s eyes widened in surprise and delight. She lowered her other arm to the bed to push herself up on her elbow, claiming a kiss, then kissing her way across his cheek, jaw, throat, and when she bit down, he actually yelped. The arm supporting him gave way and all at once, she was pinned back on the bed, his body weight on top of her.

He pushed himself up hastily, but she was laughing, and lifted both her hands to pull his head down and kiss him. He pulled himself further onto the bed at her encouragement, wrapping his arms around her, and breathing in the taste of her. 

She all but crawled into his lap, wrapping her arms around him, and his world slowed to a standstill when he felt her bare chest press against his. When had all his buttons come undone? How had he not noticed? Why did he really care, as long as it stayed that way?

It felt daring, almost wicked, to slip his hands under the shirt again, following the same path as they had before: shoulder blades, down silk-smooth skin, over ribs to tailbone, then to hips, but keeping his hands steady was so difficult when she was so warm and pliant and small breathless sounds were catching on his lips.

She was pressing so close now, and they were all but touching, save for his trousers. She knew it too, he could see the nervous eagerness in her eyes when he drew back to drink in her face. 

He drew one trembling hand from beneath the shirt to cup her face, touching as gently as he had the day before. “We can stop,” he offered, knowing this was the point of no return. “There will be time for everything.”

She looked at him, tilted her head into his palm, then pushed his shirt from his shoulders.

“You promised me wicked, wayward things,” she whispered. “I want them. I want you.”

No man could have refused.

His other hand clenched in the shirt she wore. “Off with this, then,” he murmured.

She nodded, bright-eyed and flushed, shrugging it from her body, and the sight of her, bared completely, almost did him in right then and there. Every inch of her was perfect and pale and lovely and he laid her back on the sheets, bowing over her to pay homage to every inch, just as he had promised.

At first, she seemed happy enough to let him. He kissed his way along her arms, lavishing affection on every fingertips, every knuckle, the delicate bones of her wrist. He nuzzled along her collarbone, her throat, the fine triangle of flesh beneath her jaw. He brushed his lips worshipfully along her ribs, over her sternum, scattering kisses on her breasts. 

By the time he ventured down to her belly, with licks and nibbles and gentle bites, her fingers were in his hair, and she was making soft, breathless, hungry sounds that were like music to his ears.

When his hands slid down her thighs and drew them apart, her fingers clenched. 

“Every inch,” he whispered.

“Forget kisses,” she panted. “Please. Come to me?”

He kissed his way back to her lips, drinking her in. “Are you…”

She tugged on his hair, her eyes bright. “Don’t ask me again,” she said, her voice trembling. “Please.”

He put his hand to his belt, but they were trembling so much he fumbled, and in the end, it was her own small, welcoming hands that undid his belt and unfastened his trousers. She looked up at him, rather than down, her modesty sending fresh colour across her cheeks and fresh adoration through him. Still his Belle, as she always was. 

He braced one hand on the pillow beside her head, trembling as she ran her hand from his wrist up to his shoulder. She darted her tongue her lower lip and nodded, spreading her fingers on his shoulder. 

With care, such care, her lowered himself over her, guided himself against her. She was still an innocent, an innocent, untouched, pure, virtuous. The thought was pounding against his mind, as his flesh met hers, and they stared at one another, hardly daring to believe they were at a point they both had thought would never come. 

Her other arm wrapped around him, splaying on his back, and she took a breath and nodded.

There was only the barest of resistance, but it was enough to make her cry out and he pressed his lips to hers, swallowing the sound, soothing, pressing deeper as gently, as kindly as he could, his own body quaking. She was so very hot, and he could feel every tremor that ran through her.

He lifted his head from hers to look down at her, forcing himself to stillness. There were bright tears in her eyes, but she was smiling, and her trembling hand moved from his shoulder to his cheek. 

“My Rumpelstiltskin,” she whispered.

“Yours,” he agreed hoarsely, breathlessly, wonderingly. “Always yours.”

She moved her legs on either side of him and drew a shivering breath when his hips pressed that little bit deeper. “Oh!”

He brushed his lips against hers. “Oh?”

She moved again, slightly, and this time, it was he who made a strangled sound. “Oh?” she teased with a breathless giggle.

This, he decided, was war.

He moved against her, this time with more purpose, and put his mouth to her throat again, then murmured against her ear. “Inch by inch, dearie,” he whispered. “You can’t say I’m not thorough.”

She dissolved into breathless, happy laughter, punctuated with little gasping sounds.

It was never going to be the most romantic, perfect affair, this first night. They had both been alone and untouched for so long, that he was spent before she was, and he had to catch his breath before he could even draw from her to tease her with his fingers.

The teasing turned to tickling when she lay boneless and too weak to push him away. It seemed she had a spot, right beneath her ribs, and in the end, they were both laughing and sticky and sheened with sweat.

She draped one leg over his, the back of her hand resting against his bare chest. His arm was around her shoulder, and they were both sprawled half-on, half-off the pillows.

“Is this what it’s meant to be like?” she asked, gazing at the ceiling and brushing her knuckles against his ribs. “Love?”

He drew circled on her shoulder with his fingertips. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I haven’t done this before.”

She tilted her head and kissed his chest carefully. “I think it is,” she said. “I think it’s meant to be happiness.”

“You’re happy, then?”

She turned on her side, and leaned up to look him in the face. Her hair was dishevelled, her lips swollen from kisses, her eyes bright. “I’m not unhappy,” she said.


End file.
